I watching too much television for my own good. I get sucked into the histrionics of love triangles and betrayal, the aftermath of parties that only happen during primetime, and the feel-good soundtrack that seems to play at the end of every episode, just before the tantalizing cliffhanger - a car crash? A law suit? A murder? It changes every time. But all the hours blend into each other, as I alternate between my Netflix tab and the five online stores I'm window-shopping at, and I forget things. I forget that I'll be gone for a good while in a few days, away from sneezy orange cat hair (of which not nearly enough is on my clothes) and internet connection (what a relief). I don't see why I don't spend the time looking for the items on the "Missing" list I've made, which keeps me from going to bed at night. It's easier to worry about someone's problems when they're stuck in a screen, wearing a character name, and not living inside you.
I lost my I.D., for which there is no replacement. Touche. I lost the only concrete piece of plastic I have that clearly states, in laminated ink, who I am. No one from my old school believes me when I ask if they've seen the latest of something - "You're the studious type." "Yeah, right. Now what books have you read recently?" And over and over again: "You've changed." If I could find the I.D. that gets me into my high school's parent college, it would prove to anyone who had the good sense to ask that I have the same name, the same face, the same ludicrous-or-not aversion to eyeliner. But a lesser mind.
I lost my lip balm, which I bought a week ago now. It was pink on the outside and creamy on the inside and smelled like artificial strawberries. Over the label you could find J2's DNA from when she licked it to spite me. It was making the crinkled bits at the corners of my mouth go away, and me stop biting them and creating cold sores and bloody teeth. I put it on to go dancing with my grandma - I put it on, and switched houses, and lost my lip balm, and stopped smelling like strawberries.
I lost my disposable cameras. Six of them, from the summer camp I went to a month ago. This is after I bought more than twenty dollars worth of merchandise for the sole purpose of creating a scrapbook adorned with Polaroid smiles, soon-to-be forgotten names but not the faces. Six cameras - you'd think I'd be able to find at least half of them. They are in one of three places. One: The tiny apartment with more boxes than you can fit in an elevator at once - so many nooks and crannies to hide in, but so little square footage to search. Two: The new house with practically nothing in it, the house that is supposedly ours now but retains wooden floors, and old stove, and the black hole that must have swallowed everything. Three: Gone.
I think I lost more. I think I lost my way somewhere, that being in a new place forced me to reevaluate who I am. Everyone around me now has so much motivation, but here I am wallowing on the keys of a computer my parents got me for Christmas so I could carry out my dreams and write. But what's on my server? A selfie I took for my Facebook profile. Spanish homework. The soundtrack to "Anything Goes." Actually, I think they meant EVERYTHING Goes - Away If You Let It. So learn from my mistake.
